


The Fourteenth Day in Delta

by Renne



Category: The Hurt Locker
Genre: Angst, Gen, Military, Yuletide2009
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-25
Updated: 2009-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-05 06:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renne/pseuds/Renne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James doesn't feel alive again until he returns to Baghdad, and when he sees Sanborn there he realises there's more he's missing than just courting death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fourteenth Day in Delta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gardinha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardinha/gifts).



On his return to the States James had tried his best assimilate back into civilian society. Or at least, that's what he told himself.

He'd tried to be a dad to his kid and tried to go shopping with his wife-slash-ex-wife-slash-whatever-she-was, and tried to give a shit about the latest civilian news in the paper and the wall-to-wall coverage of the election trail that his wife-slash-ex-wife-slash-Connie-I-don't-even-know-what-you-are-to-me-anymore left the television switched to day in and day out. He'd tried, but it soon became pretty fucking obvious to him that he was failing. He could see it in his face every time he looked into the mirror (he stopped looking into the mirror) and every time he looked into Connie's eyes (he stopped looking into her eyes); he was a failure at the civilian life. It didn't give him what he wanted, what he needed, and maybe... shit, maybe Eldridge was right, no matter how much he'd tried to pass it off.

He'd tried (tried, tried, tried, everything he did was _trying_) to justify Eldridge's words – the kid had been angry, in pain, he was being sent back home for god knew how many surgeries and rehab and six months of not being able to walk – but no words spoken in anger had more truth to them. James was a goddamn adrenaline junkie.

He'd gone from the man whose life (and those of his squad and many more Iraqis besides) depended on the skills of his hands and mind, to someone who couldn't even successfully make the choice of a fucking box of cereal. No, courting certain death was a powerful drug, he couldn't deny it. James took risks because it was something he needed to do; he'd learned over 800 devices ago that he needed to be the one in there with their hands on the bomb. Sanborn had asked him, once, if James thought he was ready to get into the suit. 'Sure,' James had said, as if he'd meant sure, you're ready to get in the suit and go out there and hold life and death in your hands. He hadn't, though. Sanborn had been drunk and the time and James just fucking humoured him.

Truth was that he was too selfish to let anyone else put the suit on. He didn't give a shit about being a hero, but the thought of standing back by the Humvee as the guy in the suit went in there and did his thing was unbearable. But once Sanborn had lost it, once he'd shown he was weak, James had known there wasn't any fucking risk that someone would take the one thing that made him feel alive – death – from him. 'How do you do it?' Sanborn had asked. 'Take the risk?' and James had just shrugged. It was who he was. It either was or it wasn't, that was plain fact.

When he'd decided to return to Iraq it was his decision alone, and when he'd told Connie, she hadn't even protested. She'd just looked at him, his son cradled in her arms, her eyes sad and knowing and resigned. And then she'd looked at his son, fat and happy and oblivious. She didn't have to say anything; every bomb he disarmed might be another step closer to coming home in one piece, but every bomb they found was a step closer to being blown to Kingdom Come, and leaving his kid without a dad.

But that was a risk James was willing to take. Even with his son, that was a risk he was willing to take. It was either that or remain in their shitty suburban home, dying inside, starved of what he needed, until he became one of those deadbeat dads with nothing to live for.

He'd felt dead already when he took his first step on American soil. Stepping out of that chopper on the tarmac in Baghdad he'd felt a faint kick in his chest. The first suspected IED found within fourteen hours of being in country had been like the shock of defibrillation. The moment he'd been strapped into the suit something had cracked and unfurled in his chest, warm and glorious, and once he'd placed his hands on the wire he'd felt _alive_.

To say James was surprised to see JT Sanborn fourteen days into Delta's deployment was like saying he was surprised he failed at civilian life once Bravo had finished their tour. He wasn't surprised. Not at all. This shit got into your blood and under your skin; the adrenaline craving would kick you out of any rut no matter how hard you tried to stay there.

Sanborn had banged on about having a son and leaving his mark on the world in a brief moment of weakness, but James had seen beyond that. For all the pain and need in his voice, need to be someone and mean something in the world, when it came down to it Sanborn was no different to him. He mightn't have been the one who'd put his hands on the bomb each time, but it had gotten under his skin just as much.

Sanborn hadn't come back with the Army though. He wasn't back as a soldier, as a squad member of the EOD – he was back as a fucking security contractor. It had been Sanborn's team that had called in this latest IED, Sanborn who'd been talking to his Sergeant as he'd taken the time to school his surprise at the familiar face and slowly climbed out of the Humvee. Sanborn, who'd taken one look at him, started laughing and shaking his head, before his fist jagged out, catching James on the cheekbone. 'You fucking piece of white trash redneck fuck!' he shouted as James' team dogpiled him into the dirt and dust.

Once James had stopped laughing himself, all doubled over with his hands planted on his knees, aching through the gut from the force of it, he called his guys off. 'Relax, relax, I know this fucker.' He knuckled the tears from his eyes and held out his hand to Sanborn, tugging him to his feet. 'Hey JT, how's it rolling?'

'You are such a fucking dumb shit, James,' was all Sanborn said, squeezing his hand. 'I shoulda fucking known you'd redeploy.'

James shrugged. 'Someone's gotta do it, right?'

'Yeah, but it don't have to be you. You didn't get enough last time?' The look in Sanborn's eye is one of someone who knows very well that James didn't get enough, couldn't get enough, wouldn't get enough until he'd failed.

'Man, you know me,' James said. There was something about being here now with Sanborn that twigged feelings in James. Something different to all the previous disposals on that he'd been on with Delta, disposals that had gone fine even for them being a new squad working together. It was that something that had been missing. He glanced at his Sergeant and at his Specialist, men whose abilities he had faith in; men who hadn't yet questioned a single one of his unorthodox measures, men who seemed comfortable to take it for now, even as James – within reason, of course – amped up and up his outlandish methods for any kind of response. He hadn't once been punched in the face by either of them, or had a bitter, sharp word in the showers directed his way, or had his Specialist accuse him of being an adrenaline junkie as he was casevaced for a shattered femur, no matter how much James baited them.

Sanborn gave him that look, that long, steady look that James fucking _knew_ and felt right down his spine. Even though he was a fucking contractor, that look said that he wasn't, wouldn't, and would never take any of James' shit. 'Yeah man, I know you.' Falling in step with James, Sanborn cut him a sideways look. More familiarity and James suddenly realised he'd _missed_ Sanborn; of course he trusted his new guys to keep their eye out for him to make sure he didn't wear a sniper's bullet in the back of his head, but it wasn't the same. It wasn't the same kind of trust, instinctive and raw and deep, he'd felt with Sanborn, from the very first. And he fucking missed it.

'Walk with me,' James said. 'Talk to me. Tell me what we've got.'


End file.
